Genoveva
Adrian Ludwig Richter German
Not on view
Richter's life-long interest in medieval legend is evident in this delicately detailed watercolor that depicts Genoveva of Brabant, wife of the 13th century count palatine, Siegfried of Treves (now Trier in the German Rhineland). While her husband was away at war, she was falsely accused of adultery and condemned to death. Spared by the executioner, she fled to the forest of Ardennes in France, and lived with her son in a cave for six years, fed by a female deer. Based on a large etching Richter made some thirty years earlier, in 1848, this image uses delicately controlled color to suggest a forest idyll in which animals nurture and protect two wronged innocents.
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